Originally Posted by
MsCooterBrown 
John..there is alot in this post I can relate to ..but this..
I had been drinking daily for years, and it began to take a real toll on my mood and my personality. Alcohol began altering my core being, my way of looking at and relating to the world and to people.
This is it. I was no longer in my own body. Meaning my spirit was shot to hell..pictures that I look at..I have this faraway gaze all the time. Even "sober" pictures because I may have not been drinking at some of the events but if I wasn't drinking I was hungover..I didn't care any more. Not for other people..not even for myself other than always thinking about the next time I could drink. This went on for at least 5 yrs before it dawned on me how SICK I was.
It wasn't always that way for me, and I don't recall precisely when it started to happen, but I started having serious personality distortions. Almost Jekyll and Hyde, like they say.
Even "sober" I was different, completely on edge, or hung over, a seething ball or rage sometimes, which only more drinking would temporarily alleviate, and then exasperate.
If I had to be somewhere and
not drink I would be counting the minutes until I could get back to it. It wasn't long after that before morning drinking kicked in, and then all day drinking, and then just more sickness than not.
Suicide did cross my mind several times by the end. I think the only thing that kept me from actually doing it was the thought of what my mother would go through.
I don't have such thoughts these days.